Liam Grehan dug deep on another day where scoring proved extremely tough at St. Mellion Golf Club in Cornwall, and the K Club man secured his second top-10 finish in his last three Clutch Pro Tour starts.
Just three of the 51 players who had survived the 36-hole cut managed to go round in under-par on the third and final day as strong gusts and rain tested the pros to their limits.
Grehan began the day five back after a frustrating second round, but an opening birdie was cancelled out by a bogey on the par-5 second and he dropped another shot on the sixth. There aren’t many better ways to respond to a bogey than with an eagle, and that’s exactly what he made on the par-5 seventh and he turned for home at -1 for the day.
The next par-5 wasn’t as kind, and a double bogey effectively ended all hopes of overall victory. Having made a bogey, an eagle, and a double bogey on the first three par-5s, he’d round out with a birdie on the last of these – the 16th – and followed up with another birdie on 17 before disappointingly closing out the week with a bogey that would eventually be the difference between a tie for the fourth and the T8 where he finished, but only three players bettered his level-par effort on the day and nobody beat it by more than one.
Rowan Lester took one blow more to complete his final round, but his one-over 73 for a four-over final tally saw him climb 11 places into a three-way tie for 20th, with Rory Williamson finishing tied for 43rd and John Ross Galbraith rounding out the Irish contingent in a tie for 47th.
Englishman Tom Sloman who held a Challenge Tour card in 2023 was the only player to record three rounds under-par, and his closing 71 was enough to see him overtake 36-hole leader Daniel Smith early, and it was local man Tyler Hogarty who would put the pressure on, recording back-to-back birdies on his closing two holes, forcing Sloman to navigate the closing stretch in level-par for a one-stroke victory.